As shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, the sliding type sunroof having a lift down device according to the prior art includes rails 1, a front shoe 3 and a rear shoe 4 slidably retained on each rail 1 via a shoe piece 2, and a sunroof panel 5 secured to the front shoe 3 via a bracket 6 and secured to the rear shoe 4 via a link 7. The link 7 is turned and the sunroof panel 5 is lifted down and placed in a slidable state by turning the front shoe 3 about the shoe piece 2. The sunroof panel 5 may then be slid in the rails 1 together with the front shoe 3 and rear shoe 4 to open a roof 8 of the vehicle.
While the amount by which the sunroof panel 5 is allowed to recede during the lift down operation is made large so as not to affect the sliding of the sunroof panel 5, it is also required that the sunroof be made as thin as possible in order to provide greater comfort in the passenger compartment by affording more head clearance. To this end, efforts have been made to maximize the distance between the link 7 and the pivot point of the sunroof panel 5 for lifting down the panel 5. However, when the abovementioned arrangement is adopted, the aforementioned distance cannot be made greater than the length of the rails 1 since the link 7 is turned and the sunroof panel 5 is lifted down by turning the front shoe 3 about the shoe piece 2. As a consequence, the sunroof cannot be made small in thickness while sufficiently increasing the amount by which the sunroof panel 5 recedes at lift down.